Broadcasting Telecasting (Jan-Mar 1956)

FROM RADIO TO RADIO or somebody reading the news and weather in a matter-of-fact way, that is enough. As a matter of fact, people in this study were asked, would they like any broadcast service at all at such times as breakfast, supper, on retiring, in the early morning, in the car, and the like? The generic answer for many such occasions was "nothing more than a radio." Radio is preferred, not because it is better or more pleasing or more absorbing, but precisely because it is not. Nowhere in the entire field would the triumphant television engineer be so utterly dumbfounded as in the field of daytime broadcasting. This is precisely the time when people "have work to do," when they feel they are not entitled to entertainment — not much anyway. To the very degree that television engineers and television programmers are successful in attracting people's full attention, tempting their deep absorption and offering them complete delight — to this degree, daytime television is viewed as "bad." The engineering triumph becomes, so to speak, a household shame. Is this the sheer perversity of human nature? Probably not. Who would really like to see a Max Liebman spectacular in full color — if he were just getting out of bed in the early dark of a winter workday, or greeting his children and wife after an absence, or turning a fine piece of machinery on a factory lathe, or washing the dishes and making beds on Tuesday morning? In every one of these instances, an unobtrusive radio would not be out of place, but the full impact of the "best" entertainment that television can offer — that would be self-defeating. People don't always want to move fast, and hence there is a place for "slow" transportation systems such as ocean liners; people don't necessarily measure living in the number of years they are kept alive, and hence there is a place for medically "dangerous" practices such as overindulgences of various kinds; it is difficult to build an efficient "house" for people because they also want a "home"; and people want only during a very small fraction of each day to be entertained with the fullest possible delight of all their sensory capacities, and hence there remains a very large place for "outmoded" devices and services like radio. The Costs There is a point beyond which a device takes such a high proportion of people's available resources that the cost, in other sacrifices, does not warrant any engineering marvel. Something like this seems to be the case with television in America right now. While it has not been noticed, the current cost of equipping American homes with television is still too great — beyond the breaking point for most people — to supplant radio completely. The reason the cost factor hasn't been noticed, by most of the present generation, is that they still think of being fully equipped with only one television set, just as the previous generation thought of one radio as making a radio home. Yet the actual use of broadcast devices by the present generation, lumping radio and television sets together, indicates that a "fullyequipped" home or family really requires at least three such devices. Actually, however, only a portion of the costs are ever convertible to dollar measurement. Among the "unconvertible" costs which U. S. families are now finding in tv — and about which they grumble at least mildy — are these: sore eyes, overexcited children, innocents who see things they shouldn't, housework and mending undone, books unread, husbands who won't talk between 7 and 10 p.m., family gatherings and social occasions spoiled by someone's insistence on tv, to mention only a few. In fact, perhaps the most common of the mild complaints about television uses an economic concept, waste. As one woman put it, "television wastes my time." The resource which is extraordinarily used in exchange for tv's greater delights is, of course, the attentive use of one's eyes for long times. The millions of dollars that Jackie Gleason gets are nothing in comparison to this price that his listeners are willing to pay, not merely to hear him, but precisely to drop everything else and see him. Yet most of the rest of the time when most of the rest of television is on — say the 21 hours from 10 p.m. one night till 7 p.m. the next night — they are obviously unwilling and unable in modern civilization to devote this valuable resource, the use of their sight, to mere sightseeing. Quite naturally and rationally, then, people cling to the "outmoded" device which makes use of a cheaper resource, hearing, which is not so crucial — and for long hours not even necessary — in modern civilization. Here a question arises: what is "up to date?" Suppose that the transmission of pictures without sound had been adapted in the 1920s from silent movies to radio. The "cost of sight" was so great in those days of the long work week and heavy household chores that there probably wouldn't have been much more daytime broadcasting than there was daytime moviegoing or watching home films and slides during the day. Now, suppose today the reverse transmission of sound, without pictures, were just being invented, say "talking radio." It would be hailed as a "great discovery" and "the answer" to such problems as daytime broadcasting for busy housewives, precisely because it used a cheap and available resource, hearing.* Specified Conditions Among the other sources of error or inadequacy in the inventor's initial development of a new device — sources of error which give the old device "second chances" to survive — must surely be included the use and abuse of the experimental method. For example, people are asked to look at radio *The same kind of question has been raised about cigarette lighters. If these bulky nuisances, with their needs for flints, wicks, and fluid and their uncertain operation, had been invented before matches, the latter would be hailed as the more modern, up-to-date invention. Thus, the question of what is an "up-todate" invention is a relative one. In broadcasting at the moment, some modern conditions favor the new costlier device and some the old cheaper one. The genuinely "up-todate" consumer thus has reason to retain both, according to the resources, in eyesight and hearing, that he can allocate to each. Broadcasting • Telecasting January 23, 1956 • Page 79